Part 11 (1/2)
He looked at me with that quizzical, serio-coreat heartiness replied: ”No--they were dah I did not realize howI could not resist, but--there shall be no o and have a drink”
That was the beginning of a friendshi+p which brought happiness to both of us and lasted nearly half a century, to the hour of his death, when, going fro Grove Ce in Cincinnati My objective was Nashville, where the young woman as to become my wife, and who with her fa the su Times, had a scheme to buy the Toledo Commercial, in conjunction with Mr Coe me as editor conjointly with Mr Harrison Gray Otis as publisher It looked very good Toledo threatened Cleveland and Detroit as a lake port But nothing could divert overnor of Tennessee andrebels, would alloas going to Nashville
About the time the as cleared my two pals, or bunkies, of the Confederacy, Albert Roberts and George Purvis, friends from boyhood, put in an appearance They were on their way to the capital of Tennessee
The father of Albert Roberts was chief owner of the Republican Banner, an old and highly respectable newspaper, which had for nearly four years lain in a state of suspension Their plan noas to revive its publication, Purvis to be business er, and Albert and I to be editors We had no cash nobody on our side of the line had any cash
But John Roberts owned a farh to start us What had I to say?
Less than a week later saw us back at ho We divided it into districts, each taking a specified territory The e boys hustled was a sight to see But the way the community warmed to us was another When the familiar headline, The Republican Banner, made its appearance there was a popular hallelujah, albeit there were five other dailies ahead of us A year later there was only one, and it was nowise a coirl, Edith Scott, the niece of Huxley, whoirl, Sophie Searcy, was in Selh money by Christirl was on the spot, and we had resolved, money or no money, to be married without delay
Before New Year's the three of us edded and coalore, for the paper had thrived consuly that after a little I was able to achieve the wish of reat American novel”
with me I have related elsewhere what came of this and what happened to h' put out at usance,” as Joseph Jefferson used to phrase it--shall return after many days has been I dare say discovered by most persons who have perpetrated acts of kindness, conscious or unconscious There was a poor, broken-down English actor with a passion for Chaucer, whoress His voice was quite gone Now and again I had him join me in a square meal Once in a while I paid his room rent
I was loath to leave hih he declared he had ”expectations,” and h Regent Street in London, when a sham drove up to the curb and a wheezy voice called after me It was my old friend, Newton His ”expectations” had not failed hi in affluence
He knew London as only a Bohemian native and to the ation knew no bounds Between him and John Mahoney and Arteht be called thephases of life in the British n casual In e has served ood fortune that caratitude to him, as dear old John Mahoney did When I was next in London he was gone
It was not, however, the actor, Newton, who a bread-upon-the-water moral, but a certain John Hatcher, the memory of whom in my case illustrates it much better He was a wit and a poet He had been State Librarian of Tennessee Nothing could keep hih he was a sad cripple and wholly unequal to its requirements He fell ill I had the opportunity to care for hie D Prentice, called him to Louisville to take an editorial place on the Journal
About the same time Mr Walter Haldeman returned from the South and resumed the suspended publication of the Louisville Courier He was in the priy, enterprise and industry, and had with him the popular sympathy Mr Prentice was nearly three score and ten The strea to feel the strain but was losing ground In this eency Hatcher ca noticeable work on the Nashville Banner
”Here is your man,” said Hatcher to Mr Prentice and Mr Henderson, the owners of the Journal; and I was invited to come to Louisville
After I had looked over the field and inspected the Journal's books I was satisfied that a union with the Courier was the wisest solution of the newspaper situation, and told them so Meanwhile Mr Haldeman, whom I had known in the Confederacy, sent for me He offered me the same terms for part ownershi+p and sole editorshi+p of the Courier, which the Journal people had offered me This I could not accept, but proposed as an alternative the consolidation of the two on an equal basis He illing enough for the consolidation, but not on equal terht I took the Journal and began to hammer the Courier
A dead summer was before us, but Mr Henderson had plenty ofthe contest not an unkind as printed on either side After stripping the Journal to its heels it had very little to go on or to show for what had once been a prosperous business But circulation flowed in Frohteen hundred daily it quickly mounted to ten thousand; from fifteen hundred weekly to fifty thousand The ht road before us
But I knew better I had discovered that the field, no h to support two rival dailies There was toward the last of October on the edge of town a real-estate sale which Mr Haldeman and I attended Here was my chance for a play I must have bid up to a hundred thousand dollars and did actually buy nearly ten thousand dollars of the lots put up at auction, relying upon so to my wife
I could see that it e which had brought us out I said: ”Mr Halde to run up a ation to Ishae You need an editor I need a publisher Let us put these tspapers together, buy the Deo after Cincinnati and St Louis You will recall that I proposed this to you in the beginning
What is thewas the reed at once The details were soon adjusted Ten days later there appeared upon the doorsteps of the city in place of the three fa itself the Courier-Journal Our exclusive possession of the field thus acquired lasted two years At the end of these we found that at least the appearance of coly accepted an offer froan for a division of the Press dispatches which we controlled Then and there the real prosperity of the Courier-Journal began, the paper having made no money out of its monopoly
IV
Reconstruction, as it was called--ruin were a fitter na the executioner The Constitution of the United States hung in the balance The Federal Union faced the threat of sectional despotisospel of proscription ruled in Congress Radicalism, vitalized by the murder of Abraham Lincoln and inflamed by the inadequate effort of Andrew Johnson to carry out the policies of Lincoln, was in the saddle riding furiously toward a carpetbag Poland and a negroized Ireland
The Deht have interposed, lay helpless It, too, was crushed to earth Even the Border States, which had not been eencies and federalized machinery erected over the Gulf States, were seriously loomier auspices